Saturday
Jan032009
Orwell and Gaza: Turning Psychological Warfare into "Moral Clarity"
Saturday, January 3, 2009 at 12:45
Update: An Israeli bomb has killed nine and wounded at least 60 in a mosque in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. According to CNN, "leaflets signed by the commander of the Israeli military were dropped over northern Gaza on Saturday morning, warning residents to 'leave the area immediately' to ensure their safety".
Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post:
A reader from Birmingham replies, "This issue of pre-warning Arab 'targets' was an impressive act of propaganda by the Israelis- not actually expected or intended to save lives it has been supplied as effective ammunition for pro-Israeli writers in America."
Let's see. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world and since movement of Gazans is restricted --- they are in effect trapped in a small strip of land. So as Ayman Moyheldin of Al Jazeera, the only broadcast correspondent inside Gaza, just put it cogently, "Where can they go?" Hamdi Shakura, a human rights lawyer, adds, "Who can tell where the next hit will be? Who can advise people not to take the threats seriously? It's psychological warfare but it's real."
A typical leaflet reads:
To the residents of the Gaza Strip, be responsible for your fate. The rockets launched by terrorists are putting you and your families at risk. For your safety, please keep your call secret. The Israeli army will respond if the rocket fire continues.
If you want to help your families and friends and brothers in the Gaza Strip please call.
But here's a twist. The phone number "appears to be a Jerusalem or Ramallah number", cities which to my knowledge are not in the Gaza Strip.
And
Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post:
[The Israel-Gaza conflict] possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.
Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger.
A reader from Birmingham replies, "This issue of pre-warning Arab 'targets' was an impressive act of propaganda by the Israelis- not actually expected or intended to save lives it has been supplied as effective ammunition for pro-Israeli writers in America."
Let's see. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world and since movement of Gazans is restricted --- they are in effect trapped in a small strip of land. So as Ayman Moyheldin of Al Jazeera, the only broadcast correspondent inside Gaza, just put it cogently, "Where can they go?" Hamdi Shakura, a human rights lawyer, adds, "Who can tell where the next hit will be? Who can advise people not to take the threats seriously? It's psychological warfare but it's real."
A typical leaflet reads:
To the residents of the Gaza Strip, be responsible for your fate. The rockets launched by terrorists are putting you and your families at risk. For your safety, please keep your call secret. The Israeli army will respond if the rocket fire continues.
If you want to help your families and friends and brothers in the Gaza Strip please call.
But here's a twist. The phone number "appears to be a Jerusalem or Ramallah number", cities which to my knowledge are not in the Gaza Strip.
And
Reader Comments (1)
Reporting on the death of Nizar Rayan yesterday, The Irish Times (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0102/1230842350522.html) carried the following statement from Israeli primeminister Ehud Olmert:
"we want quiet and we want the lives of southerners to change so that our children can grow up in security, without fear and nightmares"
Luckily for Rayan's four dead children, they will no longer have to experience fear or nightmares. Although for his remaining eight children, I wouldn't be so sure.
Olmert's sentiment maybe honourable and surely what every parent wishes for their child. And maybe it is debatable whether Rayan should have moved his family after the "warning". But at the end of the day it was an Israeli, not a Hamas, one-ton bomb that killed members of the Rayan family. So in the literal words of Krauthammer "[The Israel-Gaza conflict] possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating."